


On The Subject Of Mercy

by TrishaCollins



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn "Makes" a friend, Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Verstael Is Not A Good Person, clones are people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-03-08 21:13:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18902773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Mercy is complicated when you're a thousand demons in a trench coat. Still. Still. Something in the eyes of the clone stirs something odd within him.





	1. Chapter 1

It looked pitiful, pouty lips chewed bloody, eyes downcast. 

It twisted something almost unfamiliar within him. Well. Perhaps he had consumed too many of the poor creatures by now. ~~Maybe he remembered all too well what it felt like to be at Besithia’s mercy.~~. 

He gave it a shirt, and then a pair of pants. Then a pair of shoes when it started following him around like a brain damaged duckling. A jacket when it followed him out into the cold, heedless of the daemons that danced over its skin and the snow that flushed it. 

It looked at him with the eyes of a child, though it had been grown to suit Verstael’s craven desires. Teen, freckled cheeks, blue eyes, blonde hair. Verstael was the very definition of a narcissist. It had never seen the sun, but he had exposed it to the equivalent light sources to cause the freckling. 

It would sleep curled up at his feet, fingers wrapped around his ankle as he worked. 

Usually, they were converted when Verstael grew bored of them. Probably bad for the troop morale, but that was the way of things. It had been created to serve, and serve it had. Now? 

Ah. Now. That was a problem. It wore what he gave it, bathed when he bade it, and ate whatever he offered. 

It was obedient, with the healed pouty lips turned against him at regular turns. It seemed to favor ice cream, forgetting, he supposed, that it had been born in the snow. Born. As if the creatures could be born. It had a purpose. 

It was an indulgence. Occasionally, when it slept at his feet like a well-trained hound, he considered ending its existence. Freeing it to death, rather than submit it to the pain of conversion. 

He neither killed it nor gave it back over to Verstael, who occasionally asked after it with the air of someone who had misplaced a pen.

He couldn’t call the feeling twisting inside him ‘empathy’, he had long ago lost the ability to ‘care’ about the gnats that buzzed around his head, given them over to the daemons that filled him to the brim. 

But he gave it tasks – at first, little mindless things he didn’t care to do but that needed to be done, and then more complex things that needed to be done but he simply had not the time to finish. It was a loyal little creature, and it grew more powerful under his praise. 

It could move through the world without drawing attention to itself, no more than the cherub cheeks and the infectious laugh – not that he had been infected, but he had seen the pitiable creature turn a room from furious to amiable with nothing but the force of its considerable talent. 

A talent that had nothing to do with being a soldier or giving itself over to Verstael’s desires.

He had to admit he was impressed with it. Intrigued, even. It still slept at his feet and did as he bid with no questions, but there was a lightness to its eyes now. A warmth that – gods forbid – seemed to encompass him in its scope. 

It made him wonder about the one the Lucians had stolen away, if it had grown as well, if it was nearly as charming. 

If it was as _good_ as his.

But he did not investigate. He was selfishly sure that his was better, if only because it was **he** who had trained it, who had molded it ~~ignoring the training that had gone into it before it had been awoken~~ into what it was. 

_His_ creature, his servant. A reliable one, which answered to no one but him.

Perhaps he was fond of it, fond of the little duckling that darted to follow him into whatever situation he walked into, heedless of the fact that it was not nearly so immortal as he. 

But he looked after it. Healing it without sharing the daemon that crawled within it, guided it through the world. 

It was an avid student, wide blue eyes, sharp, smart. Verstael was wasting them, taking away their acumen by forcing them into the armor. Taking away their adaptability by making them puppets. 

He took it with him to Lucis. He had not planned to use it, but he did not trust Gralea with it. They were wasteful, though he had goaded them to be so. 

It did not suit him to waste his servant. 

Though he would be lying if he said he had not thought of just this moment, in Galdin. His servant behind him and to the left, rifle hung gently on its strap, watchful but not uneasy. Primed to his disposition after years tending it. 

Standing next to him as the Prince and his entourage gaped at them, the boy – the one who had been stolen as an infant – among them. 

“The hell?” The tall one, Amicitia. Had to be an Amicitia. Broad shouldered, tall, muscled, eagles. Definitely an Amicitia. 

“Who are you?” The prince demanded, gaze darting between them, and then back to the little friend. Then back to shooting between them. Anxious, confused.

Delightful. “Oh, merely a man of no consequence.” He murmured, not bothering to introduce his servant, watching their reactions with hungry eyes. 

He had never gotten around to giving it a name. He had no idea if it had named itself. It appeared a few years younger, if he guessed correctly. But it was impossible to miss the almost identical features. 

The clone – the prince’s friend – dropped a hand to his wrist. 

Oh how delightful. Did they know? Was it possible that the Lucian raised clone didn’t? 

“Who are _you_?” The prince demanded of his clone. 

He swallowed a purr, utterly chuffed with the way things were going. 

His clone looked at him, one brow raised in question, requesting but not demanding, relaxed and ready to deny the request if it was not granted. 

He shrugged, more curious and amused than concerned. What could they gain from his darling clone? Nothing at all. It would likely not share anything of a sensitive nature. 

“Echo.” The clone stated, bland, voice near toneless. 

“Echo _what_?” The prince was almost growling, the hair on the back of his neck prickled outward. 

The clone looked confused. 

“Echo is what it is called, it has no other identifier.” He accepted the name as easily as he accepted all things – he was amused by the name. It must have chosen it during its duties. It served it well – and echo of what Verstael could have been, had he chosen a different path. 

Quite well chosen from a cheek scraping. 

“ _It_?” The bespectacled advisor demanded. “Why would you call him an _it?_ ”

“Why would I call it anything else?” He leveled his look on the prince’s friend, admiring the white, pursed lips. “It is not as though Echo was _born._ ” 

That silenced them, the prince stepped back towards his friend. 

Echo was still beside him, watching them. 

He pondered what the clone might be thinking. It had never wavered from his side, never seemed like it would seek out its progenitor and request to be completed, but he had no idea what it would think of this clone. 

“Be that as it may.” He said, when the merry band of fools said nothing. “You will not find the ferry. Sadly, it appears delayed. Come now.” He clicked his fingers and Echo fell into step beside him.

He offered a fond pat as they walked away, pleased with its service. 

Echo breathed deeply of the sea air, and pressed perhaps a step closer in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

Echo was doing something clever with colored paper, folding it into extraordinary shapes while the prince and his retinue watched and tried to ask him questions.

He nursed the beer he had been given, watching the boy work. There was a mark near his hairline that bore the suspicious resemblance to teeth, and shadows under his eyes from his recent 'recalibration.'

He pressed his lips at the memory, daemons roiling beneath his skin. Three days gone before he realized something was amiss, and another day to find him in Verstael's tender care.

No one should look at him with such undisguised relief. No one should, but Echo had. Had locked eyes with him and twisted beneath the restraints as though he were the star at the center of the boy’s universe. But worse still had been the sudden awareness that Echo had expected him to come – had maintained faith those long weeks that he would be rescued. He had thought himself free of such bitter sentiment. But it had roiled within him, through him. The Daemons had seen it. Their avarice was queerly focused on the trace of their taint within the boy. But where always before it had led to hunger, now it simply became possessive. 

He had nearly killed Verstael before he had caught himself, nearly killed him. Almost did. Just a twist of his wrist and his tormentor would have joined so many others that had died under his hand.

But he hadn't.

It was odd after so long to have regrets. To watch his servant mingle so easily with the very target of his fury. His malice. His revenge.

But where Verstael had left marks that even now were obvious, the prince was encouraging his servant. His clone. ~~his rescued innocent who had a poor track record of picking protectors.~~

They all were, bizarrely. With the advisor tempting him with food, and the Amicitia asking about his gun, and the other clone. The Lucian clone. Designation: Prompto. Was taking pictures and asking charming questions as though Echo was a long lost sibling.

He had no idea where Echo had picked up the paper folding. But he had an undeniable skill at it.

The daemons twisted inside him, rippling through him. Usually, it would mean he would need to feed soon.

But it felt like the darkness within him was already feeding, consuming this moment with a possessive edge. His clone(s?), His cook, his shield, his prince.

Which was perhaps the most dangerous line of thought the daemons had allowed him to entertain in recent memory.

Chilling, really, when he was considering throwing this fool of a prince Titan.

He took another sip of the sour beer, washing it around his mouth as he considered the problem he had created for himself.

If the prince was his, did that limit him? If the advisor was his, could he throw them all to the wolves? When had the daemons decided that Echo was more than a convenient cog in his well-ordered machine?

The boy was a clone. One of so many thousands Verstael had produced. Not even a pure clone, one who had been woken early and used for base needs. He had washed the stink of sex from him again, holding him up in the shower stall as he used the warm water to wash the stink of his progenitor away. Damaged. Nightmares that he looked to him to soothe away. As though he was not...

A means to an end, surely. With clever fingers and an adaptable spirit. Loyal. Almost dishearteningly loyal. To him, that had been made clear. 

His. The Daemons were sure of that. His creature. 

Echo glanced at him, almost as though he had heard the thought. There was a faint smile that the Advisor clearly caught, eyes darting between them.

He gave the boy (clone. Only a clone) an approving nod.

Echo turned back to his paper folding, maintaining his audience with causal ease. He had not been like that when he had first retrieved him.

He was changing. Being changed. Shaping himself into a useful tool. Or whatever the paper folding was for.

Maybe a hobby. He had once had hobbies.

"So where did you come from on Nifilheim?" The Advisor asked, passing plates around.

"Gralea." Echo answered easily, setting aside his paper in order to take his plate.

"What was it like?" The Lucian clone asked, picking at his food as he peered at Echo.

Echo screwed up his face, considering, chewing on his lip. It was a deplorable habit that he had tried to train the boy out of, but it was the only thing that he seemed unable to let go of. "I was very lucky to be found by who I was." There was a slight incline of his head.

The rest of the group looked at him, and he toasted them mildly with his beer. He might not need it, but the food was very good.

The Lucian clone was gazing at him, clearly thinking, chewing over the statement. 

He wondered if the boy though him its rescuer. That would be amusing. Leonis would be livid, if what Dratous had reported was true.

The children soon started a card game, which he swore off but Echo joined, lower lip caught between his teeth and pretending for several hands that he had no idea what they were playing – he was a sneaky gambler, since Ardyn knew he had played this game and others besides with the human guards of the tower. 

But here his cheating and pretension only got a guffaw once they figured him out, and an accusing finger waggle at Prompto. 

Ah. Perhaps that one also cheated outrageously at cards? Could card thievery be genetic?

Prompto clearly seemed to think so, and the pair of them went again Noctis and his advisor while the Shield cleaned up their little camp.

It was very nearly charming. Alarming, in its own way, how easily they had won their way inside their guard. But…charming. 

Innocent. Noctis had always been so very innocent. And now, that innocence was inviting his servant in. The one who could –and had- taken out targets from rooftops with nary a tear shed, who spent most of his time reading, or folding paper when he wasn’t otherwise engaged. 

He had no idea how to mingle the feelings at war within him. Curse Bahamut. Curse the prophecy, yes. But what of Somnus’ heir? 

That, at least, he could make no headway on.


	3. Chapter 3

There were times he forgot the boy was intimidating. So easy, after all. In his mind Echo was always a thing he had chosen through particular events to claim – protect, if he was honest.

He couldn’t die. Echo knew. But the gun that snapped up and unerringly locked on the Emperor, finger on the trigger as the man stalked forward in a rage. 

They had wanted the Astral, he knew. Iedolas rage was expected. Echo’s surge was not.

Everyone in the throne room froze, staring at the clone. 

“You dare.” Iedolas snarled. “GUARDS!” 

But the MTs around them did not move. Interesting. He glanced around, considering. The situation was not his, he did not control them. They simply refused to move against Echo. 

Echo flicked his gaze to the side, questioning. Worried. Not for himself but for…him?

That was a queer sort of feeling, a little hum in his stomach. “I could hardly keep the beast from fading away.” He purred, tracing a finger along Echo’s rifle for a moment before he pushed it down.

Echo obeyed at once, relaxing his stance though he stayed between them. Wary. Ready. Watching everyone, but not especially Verstael, whom he had expected to take up so much of the clone’s attention. Verstael had been the master of so many torments for so long, why focus so intently on the emperor? Unless….

“Where is the prince!? You had him, my men saw it!” Iedolas demanded. “Are you a traitor, now?” 

Not that he had ever truly been on the side of empire. He tilted his head very slightly, considering. “I suppose that I am. By whatever metric we are measuring. We of course need the boy to wake the Astrals.”

“He could have been under our control! We could have studied him, used the crystal.” The emperor was almost spitting in his rage.

He had dabbled too much, the strain of the Scourge in him was even now eating away at this mortal shell. Soon is would fade, soon he would be nothing more than a monster. He could push it, twist it, make of him what he would. 

But no. No. He needed Ideolas as Iedolas now. For now. For this moment he needed all of these fools. 

“With that, I must away to Altissa, my liege. So nice to have this chat.” 

He reached out, resting his fingers on the back of Echo’s neck. The clone took the touch with no resistance, even tilting his head slightly forward to allow for better contact. 

The clone was so obedient, so ready to be led. It was no effort at all to fold his power around him, to pull them both from the throne room. 

Echo straighted as he drew away, lips parted. “Master?” 

“At ease.” He waved his hand, dismissive, flick of his fingers. “Gather what supplies you think you need.”

“Yes master.” Echo hesitated, question obvious. 

“Ask.” He ordered. 

“Are…are you…” Echo hesitated again. “Master, regarding prince Noctis…”

He watched the clone levelly. 

“Are we…is he truly our enemy?” Echo looked down, sucking on his lower lip. “The emperor…”

“Is a mad man.” He murmured, looking away from him. “Be careful what you say.” 

“…….” Echo was silent, shoulders tense. “Insomnia was not perfect. But. Gralea.”

Gralea had made him for the slaughter, and only luck had found this clone by his side and not another. He was sure that caused some consternation. It was only natural. “What do you want, Echo?” He asked, voice low. 

“…I wish to create the world you see, Master.” Echo whispered. 

That was an odd sense that settled within him. Was he creating a world? He had thought he was in the midst of destroying it, ending it. Tearing down these false kingdoms. “And what do you think I aim to create?”

“A world without gods.” Echo answered quickly, readily. He had clearly given this some thought. “Without their goading of you, their demands. That is what you use Prince Noctis for.”

What an odd interpretation of what was going on, charming in its simplicity. “Perhaps. Hm. I had not considered it from that angle. But if not for me, then what is it you desire?”

“If not for you?” Echo’s eyes were briefly bright, pained. “I would ask for death.”

He startled, staring at the clone. 

Echo looked down and away. “We should go before his temper finds us, master.”

“Echo.”

The clone scrunched his shoulders. 

Something stirred within him, a long forgotten bud of something genuine. He touched the boy’s shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze. 

Echo relaxed a bit, and he pretended not to see the tears clinging to his eyelashes. 

The clone was his, entirely. But his by choice, not his by choosing. How strange after all this time to find someone. Something. “We will go to Altissa, and you may see them again.”

“Thank you, master.” Echo murmured.


	4. Chapter 4

Echo dropped to a knee beside the girl, reaching into a pouch for a restorative, which he gave to her blindly, gun trained on the furious hydrean.

The girl. The oracle. He could feel his lip curling back, old hate seething through him. Tricky beasts. Liars all. Tools of the Divine.

She closed hands around Echo's wrists, the glow of her power tracing over his skin. He could see the confusion on her slim, pretty face. "You..."

"He is not infected." He sauntered forward, kneeling beside her. Her confusion, her brief terror. A part of him wanted to indulge in them, to wind her into further terror and then drink of her blood, consume all that she could have been. "You should be cautious. Too much of that and you will be no better than...well. Me I suppose." He ran a finger down her arm, drawing on the darkness within her.

She moaned, writhing on the dirty stones. "Noctis..."

"He is alive, lady." Echo said calmly. "He is above the water. He will not drown."

Lunafreya fixed him with a gaze too wild to be entirely sane.

He smiled at her, listening to the hydreans screams as it was contained.

Her brief hold on consciousness was only that, he lifted her into his arms as her eyes fell closed. "Echo."

The boy guarded their retreat back to the airship, the girl limp and ruined in his arms. As another had been. Save there had been more blood on Aera's chest, on his skin.

He placed her on one of the slim cots - meant for human soldiers, but only Echo used them. "Start an IV of fluids." He ordered the clone absently. "I will direct our pilot away."

"And- Noctis?" Echo asked, though he was already working on completing his orders.

"Commander Ravus is en-route with his advisor. Best leave him to those he trusts."

Echo tilted his head in a nod, still working on the girl.

He had meant for her to die today. To leave her ruined body for the others to find.

It would be so easy. She was half dead already. Almost entirely withered away by her purpose.

Spread darkness and ruin. That had been the destiny he had been given.

Well. The gods were fools anyway. What did they know? What could they know?

Now he had their pawn in his own hands. A replacement for the one they had stolen from him. 

So what if he failed a few times to do as they wished?

He looked back down at the pair, watching Echo gently coax sips of water into her. What did the clone know about gentleness? The world had created him to suffer.

He had helped. He had helped create him.

A growl escaped his throat and the MTs seemed to lean away, giving space to his temper.

What did any of them know?


End file.
